Councillor Lambros Tapinos has been elected as Mayor of Moreland for a second term.
Cr Tapinos joins Jim Grivokostopoulos of Manningham City Council and Mary Lalios as the Mayor of the City of Whittlesea as the Victorian Greek Australians elected as mayors.
Cr Tapinos said he will use his time as Mayor to deal with issues such as planning and development, project delivery, transparency.
He’s hoping to maintain the heritage of Moreland by introducing mandatory height controls and a “good design code” for buildings under planning approval.
“We must deliver better planning outcomes and implement our structure plans in Brunswick and Coburg with mandatory height controls,” he said in his mayoral speech.
“We must also retain third party appeal rights and implement our ‘good design code’ in order to improve the quality of new buildings so our community can have confidence in future development.”
He says it’s important to help any developments that will benefit the community in multiple ways, not just one.
“We need to make real progress in projects where Council has a direct stake like a major hospital development in Bell Street and commercial and residential development in the Coburg local shopping area, will not only improve amenity but will create local jobs for local people.
Cr Tapinos also used his Mayoral speech to acknowledge recent delays in the delivery of major projects and outlined his commitment to improving Council performance.
“Project management and delivery has fallen behind in the last couple of years. This has in part been a result of the significant increase in the scale and budget of some projects undertaken by Moreland.
“Part of the solution will be better communication with the community and greater transparency about project management.
“By the end of the financial year, information on all projects will be publically available. I see this as vital to make the organisation transparent and accountable to ratepayers,” Cr Tapinos added.